Users of firearms having magazines with minimal capacities or no magazine, such as shotguns, require the user to carry additional rounds of ammunition while he or she is in the field or out on a shooting range. Numerous types of ammunition pouches and dispensers designed to carry small quantities of individual rounds of ammunition exist, including pouches and bandoliers. Other varieties of ammunition carriers mimic the appearance of box magazines, but operate by gravity instead of having the ammunition fed by a follower and spring. In order to accommodate tapered cartridges, some other types of ammunition carriers utilize a curved banana shape, or require the ammunition cartridges to be in alternating orientations, which requires the user to flip every other one both as the ammunition carrier is loaded and as the ammunition cartridges are withdrawn. Furthermore, some versions are only suitable for use by users who are either right-handed or left-handed, and cannot be easily converted so as to be ambidextrous.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved ammunition dispensing receptacle that provides ambidextrous operation by enabling tapered cartridges to be oriented in a user-desired direction when dispensed regardless of whether the user is right-handed or left-handed. In this regard, the various embodiments of the present invention substantially fulfill at least some of these needs. In this respect, the ammunition dispensing receptacle according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of providing ambidextrous operation with all of the cartridges being dispensed in a uniform orientation.